Sari

by Middleton, Rose

  “He will hurt you, won’t he?”

  She nodded and buried her face in the sleeping bag. “I don’t want to talk about it, Kai. My mind is made up. I didn’t tear open Tom’s skin and listen to Mara sob for no reason today.”

  Kai sighed and kissed her shoulder. Her skin quivered. Rubbing a thumb over the wet mark he left, he relented with the questions. The taste of her lingered on his lips, pulling him closer for more kisses. He slipped the strap of her singlet off her shoulder and trailed his lips along her shoulder blade. The only sound she made was a contented sigh. Tension began to seep out of the tight muscles as he followed the contour of her neck up to her ear.

  She arched against him, a soft mewl vibrating her throat.

  “Turn around, Sari.”

  “I need sleep.”

  He smiled. “Just turn around, please.”

  Slowly, she wriggled around to face him. He lifted her knee onto his hip and nudged his thigh between hers. She expected him to initiate sex, that much he could read in her blue eyes. But she was wrong. If she wanted to make love, then she’d have to do all the initiating. Right now, Kai just needed to be close and twining their legs increased the contact.

  Using the tip of his nose, he traced her cheek. He pressed his lips to the plane of her jaw and worked his way to her chin, where her lips parted and hot air brushed over his skin. Kai chuffed and continued to follow the line of her jaw.

  “It’s not like you won’t see me again,” she whispered. “When you and Waylon bring in the cops, you’ll find me.”

  “I won’t be long, I promise.”

  Her arms circled his neck. “I’m counting on it.” She kissed him, her lips soft and warm. Her tongue pushed into his mouth and swept along his teeth. The roughness of her taste buds against his was heavenly and he drew in a long, deep breath of her scent.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to do it.”

  A drop of wetness slicked his skin, and when he pulled back, he saw the tears in her eyes. “I have to, Kai. I have to.”

  There had to be another way. Didn’t there? For the life of him, he couldn’t see it. Her plan, though potentially deadly, made sense. In allowing herself to be caught, she’d take attention away from Mara’s staged death and force whichever Hunter accompanied Mara to take her body back to The Facility first. By the time he came back for Mara, she’d be gone, the tracer removed.

  Of all the details, the one he couldn’t reconcile in his heart was the one that saw him return to Melbourne without her. Sure he was summoning reinforcements and a way to shut down The Facility, but it still meant he traveled in the opposite direction from Sari. He didn’t like it one bit. He felt powerless. The feeling he knew well. After Rebecca disappeared, he’d thought he had some measure of control. He’d worked with the cops at first, used their leads, their contacts. As time went by, he’d felt less and less like he had any say or power over Rebecca’s fate.

  The feelings echoed once again in his soul, especially now that he thought Zimmerman might have Rebecca. What if he’d turned her into a jaguar? Would she be the same person or different? Would she remember him? The more time Zimmerman had with her, the more damage he could do. It wasn’t the physical Kai worried so much about but her mental and emotional state.

  He blinked in surprise, aware that his thoughts could be applied to both Rebecca and Sari, and instinctively he knew Zimmerman possessed the power to break them both.

  “It will be okay,” Sari hummed against his mouth. “You’ll save me. I know it.”

  When she kissed him this time, he felt the change in her. Her hands slipped down his back and over his ass. Reaching around to the front, she fondled his growing erection, making him harder and needier. If this was their last night together until after her rescue, he wanted to make the most of it and give her something to hold onto when Rex Zimmerman tried to break her.

  Make no mistake, Sari, Zimmerman will use every trick in the book to grind your spirit into the ground. Whatever you do, don’t let him win.

  “Make love to me, Kai. I need to feel you inside me.”

  He answered with a kiss, ran his hands over her shoulders and down to her trim waist. Lifting her singlet, he sent the item flying over his shoulder not caring where it landed. Her naked breasts needed his attention, and he laved at the pointed peaks with his tongue. Sari moaned and purred, the vibration in her chest jumping across the point of contact, his tongue a conduit for the electricity to excite his muscles. Every fiber of his body thrummed, knowing he’d be inside her warmth again.

  This time, he wasn’t making stupid mistakes.

  From his pack he retrieved a condom. Sari’s eyes flashed, and she smiled, taking the foil packet from him.

  To his surprise, Sari stripped off her clothing. Up on her knees, she waited for him to follow her lead. It seemed her eagerness outweighed his, but Kai didn’t mind. By the time he lay naked, she’d disposed of the condom’s packet and rolled the rubber down the length of his cock. Her hands on him were hot and fast, wasting no time in priming him. He watched, speechless, as she crawled over and straddled his hips.

  “Why so surprised?”

  He grinned. “I was hoping for slow and long.”

  Her pussy lips touched the head of his cock, stealing his breath. “Next time.”

  He felt every squeeze of her tight muscles as she lowered herself onto him. Slick wetness greeted him, guided him and when she flattened her hands over his chest, Kai remembered to breathe again.

  “There’s no hurry,” he said, feeling a sense of deja vu wash over him.

  “Oh, but there is. Only it’s different this time.” She rolled her hips, stroking his cock. He’d died and gone to heaven, hadn’t he? “This time it’s all about need, and I need you.”

  Kai watched the rise and fall of her beautiful breasts as she rode him. Despite her talk of need, she looked peaceful. Pleasure adorned her features and a gorgeous flush spread over her taut belly. He’d never noticed how fit she was and it turned him on further.

  Her pussy tightened around him. It was time he stopped watching and started playing. Time he got involved. He grinned and sat up, holding her hips in his hands and pulling her harder against his cock. The deeper he went, the louder she purred, but when he pulled out and set her on all fours, she panted and stuck her ass high in the air.

  Kai knelt behind her and kneaded her powerful ass. Her back arched further, inviting him closer to her center. All in good time, my dear little Sari. Pushing her ass cheeks apart, he pressed his hard gut against her, knowing the heightened sensitivity of her crevice would drive her wild. He wasn’t wrong. She bucked against him, pushing back in silent demand.

  More.

  Kai set one hand in the middle of her back and nudged her shoulders downward. He trailed the same hand along her spine, his fingertips teasing and light, before dragging them through her juices gathered at her opening. A long moan filled the air moments before she switched the torch off. Only moonlight lit the tent, giving her slender back an ethereal glow.

  Pressing the head of his cock to her opening, he teased her again. She spoke, the words muffled by the sleeping bag but the sentiment loud and clear. Kai severed the contact, and when she growled in frustration, he plunged deep into her. All her talk of need and speed had made him impatient and he thrust in and out of her with long, fast strokes. He felt the gathering heat in her pussy and the waves of contractions begin within her. Control seemed pointless. Sari reared up onto her knees, pushing him to the brink. She rested her head against his chest, her urgent panting driving him harder and faster.

  “Oh yes,” she whispered.

  Kai filled his hands with her breasts and pumped until he saw stars and came hard. Sari’s body shook with such force, he wrapped an arm around her ribs to keep her steady. Orgasm owned her, crushed his throbbing cock and made her growl. It seemed to last minutes before the tension retreated from her muscles and she sagged against him.

  He kissed her neck, am
azed by the power of her orgasm. It was stronger than last night, and he suspected that would only grow with time.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered, kissing her earlobe.

  Sari’s eyes turned up to his, and he saw the light blue glow in them. “More. Again.”

  Kai smiled. “We’ve got all night, Sari.”

  “And this time,” she said, turning and pushing him on his ass. “I stay on top. Don’t make me tie you down.”

  Chapter Eight

  Rex sat across the desk from Waylon. The man still hadn’t said anything more about Sari. He talked money and science; he yammered on and on about the importance of Eco-Corp benefiting from this experiment. Rex wanted to beat the guy. Life-long friendship aside, Waylon could possibly be the most annoying person on the planet. Self-centered. Egotistical. Narcissistic. Deluded.

  Eco-Corp had been Rex’s idea, the public face of the research facility. He’d wanted to run the gigantic company, but Waylon was a smooth talker, a businessman through and through. He had the know-how and the balls to turn a small, science-based research company into a multi-million dollar organization. To the public, Eco-Corp was the face of the future, with teams of scientists and engineers working on eradicating disease and saving rare species of plants and animals. On the outside, Eco-Corp looked clean.

  Scratch the surface and one might find a different story.

  Rex wasn’t stupid enough to bite the hand feeding his Hunters, but if Waylon refused to give Rex the information he had, well, Rex would have to resort to other means. Waylon had seen the Hunters in full swing now, the little demonstration earlier leaving the old man gob smacked and grinning like a child. Rex knew what his partner saw, and it wasn’t the amazing feat of combining human DNA with feline genes and succeeding. Waylon saw dollar signs. The very thing that drove the head of Eco-Corp to fund this facility and all the politically incorrect and secret experiments going on here.

  Exploring feline DNA and genetics had given them the means to disable two types of virus running rampant through livestock in farming communities, types of virus spread by feral domestic cats. That equaled money. Eco-Corp had earned a tidy profit from the government snapping up anti-viral medicines to protect their primary industries.

  That was what Waylon saw. Such a remarkably different vision from Rex’s.

  The phone rang as Waylon opened his mouth to speak.

  “Hold that thought,” Rex said and snatched up the phone. “What?”

  “It’s Tom.” Doc’s usually calm voice sounded flustered.

  Again? “What about him?”

  “He encountered some trouble and was wounded.”

  Sari.

  “I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  Rex slammed the phone down and stood up. Waylon moved to join him but he shook his head. “Stay here. I have some business to attend. In the meantime, it might be a good idea for you to start piecing together an apology. You have information about Sari that I need to know.”

  Waylon sighed. “It won’t help.”

  “You bet it will. I won’t be long.”

  From his office on SL 6, Rex rode the elevator to the med lab on SL 5. Tom lay on the cold metal table, his leg slashed to smithereens. Mara paced nearby, a vision of worry. Interesting. He pushed aside the intrigue Mara stirred in him to focus on his prized Hunter.

  “It was her, wasn’t it?” Rex barked. “Sari.”

  Tom nodded. “She came out of nowhere and ripped me to pieces. Completely unprovoked. She’s dangerous, Rex, and angry.”

  “Pissed as hell, more like it. That girl is hell on wheels, and I’m amazed you got away.”

  Tom motioned toward the other Hunter. “If it wasn’t for Mara, I’d be dead.”

  A closer inspection of his injuries showed that she’d missed the femoral artery and the microchip. Rex gave a nod of approval, damn glad that little vixen hadn’t exposed the tracer’s location. The Hunters were blissfully unaware of the device, and he wanted it to stay that way. Tom only knew that Sari had carried one, and it hadn’t taken much to convince him the Hunters had been spared the same fate. Spreading useless information amongst the others would be a pointless exercise for Tom, keeping Rex in the driver’s seat.

  “Well, the doc says you’ll be fine, though I’m a little surprised that you’re not chomping at the bit to get back out there. This is the second time she’s bested you. Makes you look like a fool, doesn’t it?”

  The muscles in the boy’s jaw tensed. “She has the element of surprise on her side, especially now that we can’t track her. I’m telling you, I smelled no scent on her at all. She’s figured out a way to completely mask it.”

  Rex waved a hand to dismiss the concern. “Makes no difference when she’s back in her cage. You did leave the hints like I instructed?”

  “She’s not stupid enough to follow them to your door.” The defiance in Tom’s voice made Rex’s spine tingle with curiosity. “You need to send out patrols to find her. Let Mara lead them, she’s a good tracker and she knows which ground has already been covered.”

  Rex glanced from Tom to Mara, saw them share a secretive look and had to refrain from snapping at them. They were up to something. As the annoyance simmered in his veins, amusement tickled his gut. His two best Hunters, who’d never questioned anything, who’d followed every instruction, were playing a game right under Rex’s nose. Oh, what fun to uncover your treachery and deliver your punishments.

  Feigning empathy, he went to Mara’s side and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re shaking, Mara. What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head but said nothing. Rex pinched her chin between thumb and forefinger and forced her face up to the light.

  “You’re dirty. Bit of a scuffle, was there? Well, let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?” He motioned to Stevens. “Take her and make sure she gets clean and a good feed.”

  As Stevens led the lithe female away, Rex noted the worry in Tom’s eyes. Yes, whatever they were up to, they knew he wouldn’t approve. Moving toward the injured shifter, Rex rubbed his temple.

  “So if Sari won’t come to us, what makes you think we can find her, especially if her scent is hidden? I would think she’s too intelligent.”

  Tom sighed and lay back on the table, the sedatives taking their intended effect. “Mara will find her. I know it.”

  “You rest up.” Rex patted the boy’s shoulder. “I’ll arrange everything. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  Sari woke on Thursday morning to the sound of heavy rain lashing the tent. Wind howled through the treetops above them, shaking the tent walls with a violence that echoed in her soul. Why did the doom and gloom morning seem like an omen?

  She shivered in her sleeping bag then became aware of the hot male body pressed against her back. His arm, wrapped around her middle, pulled tighter, and Sari couldn’t resist a small smile at his possessiveness. All her life she’d dreamed of someone wanting to protect her, care for her. At first, she’d thought she’d found that someone in Zimmerman, until she’d realized she lay bound to a cold, metal table, completely naked and vulnerable beyond words. But in Kai, she’d found what she was looking for.

  He mumbled against her neck, warm air and muffled words. Of course he slept like a log, their night only coming to an end three hours ago. But neither could afford to let exhaustion take over. They needed to be ready for the dawn patrols. Kai had to take care of Mara and get her to safety. And Sari…she had no choice but to face the nightmare. Going back as a captive had never been on the agenda, but it wasn’t just her life on the line anymore.

  “Kai?”

  He mumbled more words, his hand splaying over her belly.

  “Come on,” she urged. “Wake up. We need to pack.”

  Slipping out of his hold, she grabbed some clothes and pulled them on to ward off the morning chill. As much as she’d love to lie here and enjoy more of his attentions, they had work to do. She pushed her feet into socks and shoes and braided her hair into a sing
le plait, all the while insisting Kai wake up. When he didn’t respond, she pushed him onto his back and sat on his chest.

  “Quit playing,” he grumbled. “Let me sleep.”

  “It’s almost dawn. Get up. If I have to leave you here, I will.”

  No, she wouldn’t. As if she’d leave him defenseless and let him fall prey to Hunters. Still, talking tough made his eyes open. He blinked, rubbed them clear of sleep and smiled up at her. Her bravado wavered under the warmth of his sensual smile.

  “Morning, beautiful.”

  Sari leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek. “Good morning. Now get dressed, we have lots to do.”

  He sighed and hugged her to him. “Five minutes, that’s all I ask.”

  “Five minutes of what?”

  “Making out with you. What better way to start the day?”

  Flattery might just get him somewhere if she didn’t put a stop to it, but the moment his lips touched hers, Sari was lost. Falling victim to his charm and heat, her mind wrestled with the decision to get herself caught. Maybe they could wage an attack on The Facility together if she remained free, but Mara’s disappearance would complicate things. Zimmerman would flood the forest with Hunters, use as many as he had at his disposal to track her down. No matter whether Sari traveled with them or not, humans couldn’t outrun shifters. Attracting their attention and drawing them to her gave Kai and Mara the best chance. The only chance.

  She detangled her lips from his and swallowed her own whimper of disappointment. “Come on. Time is short.”

  “Like a dog with a bone, aren’t you?”

  With a shake of her head, she dismounted the hunk of a man. “More like a cat on a mission.”

  “Well, they say that a cat has nine lives you know.”

  Her mouth watered at the ripple of his muscles as he sat up and pulled on a shirt. “I don’t have too many left, Kai. I’ve used up a few.”